Aaron Cook has been overlooked for a place at the London 2012 Olympics by a
selection panel including four coaches working in the high-performance
programme he walked away from a year ago. The decision is likely to lead to
a protracted legal dispute.

Ends justify the means: Aaron Cook's camp believes that his decision to leave GB's programme has been justified by subsequent resultsPhoto: AP

The Daily Telegraph can reveal the names of the selectors whose initial decision last month to overlook the world No 1 in favour of Lutalu Muhammad for the -80kg category sparked a bitter selection row that is far from over.

GB Taekwondo said on Friday night it would not be appealing against an order from the British Olympic Association to convene a new selection panel, but gave no indication of when this would happen and indicated that it rejected the BOA’s findings.

The BOA believes that the panel placed too much emphasis on issues arising from rules relating to the importance of headshots and how they are scored.

Under the new guidelines, a player has only to touch his opponent’s head to score rather than kick it forcefully, something the panel believed weighs in Muhammad’s favour.

The BOA wants all selection criteria to be applied evenly, but GBT indicated that it would find this difficult to do as, in the opinion of performance director Gary Hall, it would prevent his coaches applying their expert judgment to select the best medal prospects.

The stalemate and likely legal wrangle will do little for either athlete. In an increasingly bitter and entrenched atmosphere, Muhammad, who is blameless in the row, is understood to have received hate mail, while Cook continues to train but with an ever-decreasing chance of competing in London.

The selection process has caused deep disquiet at the BOA, which has in effect accused GBT of bias against Cook amid suggestions that he is paying the price for choosing to leave its world-class programme last year.

The make-up of the original five-man panel that rejected Cook prompted questions from the BOA about its independence and processes.

The members were: Hall; Joseph Salim, the GBT high-performance coach responsible for its -80kg programme who has worked extensively with Muhammad; Steve Jennings, a GBT coach married to world champion Sarah Stevenson; Paul Green, a coach and former international taekwondo athlete once coached by Hall; and Dr Steve Peters, the British Cycling team psychiatrist who is a non-executive director of GBT.

The panel voted 2-1 in favour of Muhammad with two abstentions. Peters is understood to have been one of those who abstained, but he declined to discuss his role when contacted by The Daily Telegraph.

Salim is understood not to have voted in the second panel. Hall is said to have voted in Cook’s favour, though he has defended the decision to select Muhammad and insists that the coaches are best placed to judge who should go to the Games.

The new headshot rule was in place at the European Championships last month, where Cook secured gold and Muhammad won the non-Olympic -87kg title.

Cook’s camp believes that his decision to leave GBT’s programme has been justified by subsequent results. There are also suggestions his decision to walk away has weighed against him. These are denied by Hall. “The fact Aaron is outside our system had nothing to do with it,” he said.